


Bear with the truths I would tell you now

by middlemarch



Category: Emma (2020), Emma - Jane Austen
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Hair, Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:29:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24919870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Her sister and Mrs. Weston had prepared her for her wedding night. No one could prepare her for the next morning or all the ones that came after.
Relationships: George Knightley/Emma Woodhouse
Comments: 27
Kudos: 326





	Bear with the truths I would tell you now

“I like it straight,” George said, almost lazily. He lay in the bed, their bed, the bed linens all rumpled around him and his sandy hair mussed most attractively; it was quite provoking that he looked equally appealing in his evening clothes and nothing at all. It was a provocation Emma quite enjoyed, almost as much as the look in his eyes when he saw her watching him. Right now, he was watching her as she sat at her vanity, the looking-glass angled so she might see nearly behind her while she untied her curling rags. Her maid usually undertook the task, letting Emma sip a cup of milky tea, but Emma had managed it herself more often than not since the wedding. Since she hadn’t wanted anyone to interrupt the idyllic early mornings when she discovered every day that George was still beside her. Perhaps one day, she would wish him to sleep in the room set aside for him but she expected that day would arrive at half-past never. If it meant he was witness to her toilette, so be it.

“I cannot stop wearing my hair in ringlets simply because you like it straight. What would people say of Mrs. Knightley? I should be counted a slattern or worse, a most dignified matron—and I should be forced to wear one of those tiresome lace caps that Mrs. Weston does and I know Jane Churchill isn’t troubled by them, but she is altogether a better creature than I,” Emma said, sure of her husband’s response.

“Mrs. Churchill is indeed a morally superior woman. And I’ll thank you not to mention her in my wife’s boudoir.”

“Is that so?”

“You cannot leave it down? Truly?” George asked, gesturing most elegantly at the cloud of curls around her shoulders. Before they had married, she hadn’t known he could sound so plaintive, so very young. Certainly not while naked; she would have thought nudity would increase his formality in every other regard. She was not bereft to be mistaken.

“Truly. I cannot look to have come direct from your bed, you must know it,” Emma said. She turned a little and saw how his lips curved in a smile, how the morning light rested very gently across his bare chest. “I am Mrs. George Knightley, a paragon of propriety, a leading figure in Highbury and a model for young ladies. My hair must be curled, braided, and pinned; I may be allowed a ribbon, a jeweled comb, but nothing loose, nothing simple.”

“I see,” George said. He shifted and the sheets fell around him as if commanded to reveal the way his hips narrowed, the lovely line of his bare thigh. He was a veritable Greek statue come to life and only Emma knew, which was a trial and a delight in an intoxicating balance; he liked it when she spoke like that and even better when she let her hand trail along his skin, wherever she could reach. When she let her slender hand grasp where she had touched, when she claimed him. He’d blushed the first time and she’d laughed, laughed until he’d stopped her with the most ardent, feral, un-Knightley kiss she could never, never have imagined.

“It doesn’t hold the curl very well. You may help me brush it out tonight if you like,” she offered. 

“I should like that very much. How much better it will be to see you become yourself that way,” he said softly.

“Become myself?”

“Without pretense, revealed only to me. Emma, undisguised—”

“Unadorned, plain and rude as a milkmaid!”

“Lovely. I like it straight, without any artifice. Only you, graceful as a lily. A rose,” George said. She blushed now, unable to resist when his voice was so low, so deep.

“I’ll look a fright,” she said.

“You’ll look like yourself. The way you look when you sleep and when you wake up in my arms. The way you only let me see,” he said. “That’s right, curl your hair. Be elegant, Mrs. Knightley, so Emma may be beautiful—and mine.”

“George!” she exclaimed, knowing her cheeks flamed red as poppies, as the scarlet of the militia’s uniform, as the cloaks of the girls at the Ladies’ Academy.

“Yes, my dearest Emma?” Oh, to hear him say _my dearest!_ To know how rich his voice was, how generous and how possessive!

“You cannot talk to me thus,” she said, waving her hands about. The light caught the gems on her ring, the one he’d given her, his grandmother’s. They were star sapphires and they were very like his eyes.

“Then come back to bed. It’s early. Early enough,” he said.

“Early enough for what, Mr. Knightley?” 

“For you to be Emma. For us to lie in the gathering sunshine with your hair unbound. For me to ruin your coiffure so thoroughly you rail at me and make me beg your pardon. I should like that, dearest,” George said.

“Me railing at you?”

“Begging. Your very gracious pardon.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the book itself.
> 
> This was inspired by lots of Tumblr gifs of Emma's elaborate curled hairstyles.


End file.
